2013 Draft: Baseball America ranks Yankees’ haul third best in MLB

In a piece that is free for all to read, Baseball America broke down this summer’s draft using a variety of categories. The Yankees ranked third in the “Best Draft” category, trailing only the Pirates and Diamondbacks. Pittsburgh had two of the top 14 selections. New York, of course, had three of the top 33 selections, so having a strong draft was pretty much guaranteed.

OF Aaron Judge, the middle of those three first rounders, is said to be the fifth best power hitter in the entire draft class by Baseball America. That’s his calling card, he’s a huge dude who can hit the ball a mile from the right side of the plate. That’s a skill that is very hard to come by these days. 2B Gosuke Katoh had the third best pro debut among high school draftees according to the publication. Those three first round picks are going to make or break the team’s draft haul. In this new spending restricted system where talent goes pretty linearly, those top picks are crucial.

I can’t wait to see all the position players fizzle out at AA and the pitchers get Tommy John after their strict innings limits don’t work out.

TT

I can’t wait until you meet the front end of a bus.

http://twitter.com/#!/Clay_Bellinger Clay Bellinger

Aggressive approach, but I like it. +1

Casa de Papi

That just made my day.

Robinson Tilapia

ietc

Drastic times call for drastic measures.

Dan

Don’t hate me–hate the Yankees’ development system.

jjyank

Then don’t watch. I don’t get people like you.

Pee Wee Herman Ruth

I bet you can’t wait to see Jeter fail at his injury rehab and never play shortstop again…that way you can loathe life even more than you already do.

BFDeal

Why are you even here?

Robinson Tilapia

The eight replies he just got for that. Once he reaches ten, he gets a free troll.

Mr. Pappageorgio

So his post is bad but the 8 people responding by wishing him death and banishment – that’s ok? the internet, lol

OldYanksFan

Yeah… wishing death is too far. Maybe just serious injury and banishment?

Robinson Tilapia

No one really ever dies on the internet anyway.

jjyank

I only saw one of those.

Mr. Roth

Meeting the front end of a bus =/= death

…well not 100% of the time, anyway.

Cool Lester Smooth

Exactly! Has this guy never seen Skins?

Robinson Tilapia

Yes.

Pat D

Always glad to see that some memes never die.

IvanS

It was good to finally see no head-scratchers in the first round. They went with talent and not hunches on light-hitting infielders and injury prone pitchers.

Robinson Tilapia

There’s a reason why those injury-prone pitchers get picked at those slots, you know.

Yes, though, I am glad we didn’t get Mike following a #1 Yankee pick during this year’s draft chat with “I have no clue who that is….”

jjyank

Indeed. I had no problem with the Brackman pick, as an example. Guys with that kind of raw potential don’t fall to the bottom of the round without a red flag.

Culver and DBJ though? Yeah, just criticism there. I’m very glad that all 3 picks this past year are legit, at least as far as conventional thinking goes.

http://twitter.com/#!/Clay_Bellinger Clay Bellinger

I was unreasonably disappointed with that draft. Watching online from the cubicle of my shitty entry-level job. Hoping like all hell that Porcello would fall to the Yanks. Knowing that Detroit was probably the last team that might take him in front of the Yanks.. and then they did. Luckily, Porcello hasn’t turned into a star, but really just a 4/5 starter type.

http://twitter.com/#!/Clay_Bellinger Clay Bellinger

The Brackman pick.

Strive

How much is the conventional thinking really worth, though?

Tons of picks taken in the 30s or 50s flame out even if they were highly regarded going into the draft. I think a lot of fans get selective memory in only remembering the studs they passed on and forgetting the busts.

jjyank

It’s not worth anything. I’m just saying that I’d rather have people be saying “yeah, those were good picks” than sitting here and hoping the Yankees know more than anyone else.

Reggie C.

Wasnt DBJ selected somewhere in the 50s? The man wasn’t a first round talent, but the Yankees werent picking first round talent at that point.

jjyank

Doesn’t matter really. He was considered a reach where he was drafted, which was my point.

Strive

Hensley ended up being injured, but he was not at all a head scratcher or considered injury prone when drafted.

The camp that decided the 2013 draft was the first time in years the Yankees took a consensus pick was misinformed about the 2012 draft.

MannyGeee

Truth, it was only after he was drafted that we (and I assume the F.O. as well) learned of his hip issue.

Cool Lester Smooth

Yeah, Hensley might have gone Top 10.

Cool Lester Smooth

(Well, 10th, but that’s still Top 10!)

Harris

Now the real test is whether the Yankees have the proper personnel to develop this draft class.

Darren

I hope Aaron Judge is better than Aaron Guiel.

I hope Tyler Wade is better than Wade Taylor.

Hope is a powerful thing.

Robinson Tilapia

AaronJudgeWithASmudge?

gbyanks

Judge, Jury and Executioner, that ball was sentence to death?

BombBomb

Aaron cracks the gavel, sentencing that ball to a HR!

Looks like Aaron judged that pitched right!

Robinson Tilapia

There used to be a commenter here, back in the glory days, named AaronGuileWithASmile, so I was just wondering what the updated version of that would be.

These are very, very good suggestions for Sterling, though. Too bad he’ll settle for “Aaron gets an A+,” or something like that.

Joe

I am going to state the obvious. The baseball draft especially is a crap shoot. I believe you should trade prospects for proven talent all the time!!!

Preston

It depends on the trade, Carlos Santana for Casey Blake and Wil Myers for James Shields were pretty poor trades both at the time and in retrospect. Although I do think that prospects for MLB players is usually a risk averse and good way to go.

http://twitter.com/#!/Clay_Bellinger Clay Bellinger

Although it probably will in the long run, I don’t that the Myers/Shields deal is bad just yet. So far they got one year of solid starting pitching from Shields and a wild card run.

Preston

Wil Myers provided 2.4 WAR in 88 games for the league minimum. James Shields provided 4.5 WAR in a full season for 9 million. Shields is signed for one more year at 12 million. Myers is retained for 5 more years. It’s already a bad trade. They could have kept Myers and signed a FA pitcher for 10 million per year.

I’m One

Not necessarily. Myers could flame out next season and never recover. Doesn’t look like that will be the case, but as we all know, top prospects don’t always perform as expected over an extended period.

Strive

I don’t know that it’s one of the first trades I’d list. They managed to get a front-end SP below market for a couple of years by trading a prospect. The prospect has worked out so far, but at the time they avoided quite a bit of risk. Granted, they also gave up other prospects and weren’t really 1 P away from contending, so I didn’t like the trade for the Royals. Think you could find more obvious examples, though.

Preston

I used the trade because it was last year so still in the front of my mind. However I think we’re going to far with the distinction between prospect and veteran. An elite prospect producing at AAA is no longer a lottery ticket and no SP is beyond risk of flaming out. Is the prospect probably riskier, yes (but also a higher reward). but the veteran doesn’t come with no risk. I also think that this trade is especially bad for the Royals given their position on the win curve and their limited finances.

OhioYanks

I don’t know, but I would be willing to bet that the failure rate of elite AAA prospects is far, far higher than the short-term injury rate for the best, most durable SPs in MLB.

Like, I’m thinking that 50% of elite AAA prospects at least take a few years if they ever come close to their projection. And what? Maybe one out of the top 10 or 20 (5-10%) SPs in their physical primes get hurt in a given season?

That’s a joke. I agree with the conclusion that it was a bad more for the Royals, but it’s not a sound analysis at all.

Cameron feels the need to only compare Myers to like prospects but compare Shields to guys like Halladay and Carpenter who are way, way older than him.

Furthermore, he goes out of his way to quantify the success rate for prospects but makes zero effort at all for Ps. Why? Most likely because the results would not have supported his argument. Why else would you quantify one side and not quantify the other when it would be easy to do so?

OhioYanks

Comparing Shields to Chris Carpenter is like comparing Myers to guys ranked 75-100 on BA’s list…

Joe

I am going to state the obvious. The baseball draft especially is a crap shoot! I believe you should trade prospects for proven talent all the time.

Pee Wee Herman Ruth

There certainly are multiple ways to build a contender…for example, the Detroit Tigers frequently trade their prospects for established talent.

Robinson Tilapia

They’ve also kept talent they’ve developed as well.

It’s a balance and, when you just trade 90% of your prospects all the time, you don’t set yourself up well in the long run. Ask the 1980’s Yankees about that.

Joe is right about the crap shoot aspect of things. You develop talent for two reasons, to replenish your roster AND to have trade chips. Picking the right keepers is part scouting talent and part crapshoot for sure.

Pee Wee Herman Ruth

It seems the Tigers are pretty good at retaining the winners and trading away the losers. In other words, don’t trade with the Tigers (unless it’s a 3-way deal).

mike

its not hard to look smart when you have Verlander and Cabrera to build around

http://twitter.com/#!/Clay_Bellinger Clay Bellinger

You just furthered his point. They held onto Verlander, who they drafted, and traded some pretty big prospects (Maybin and Miller) at the time to get Cabrera.

Pee Wee Herman Ruth

Right… and even if Maybin turned into Ricky Henderson and Miller into Greg Maddux…you still do that trade every day of the week.

Robinson Tilapia

It is significant that they didn’t, though.

I love Dave Dombrowski. I fucking love him. I think he is God of General Managing…..and I think some of the decisions he made in Detroit are part of it.

I actually think Dombrowski’s masterstroke was what he was able to get out of dismantling the ’97 Marlins. As we all know, the coldest fire sale in recent times was turned into another WS winner in six seasons.

MannyGeee

… which has caused every swinging dick on the internet to convince us to trade Robinson Cano at the Trade Deadline. So that too…

Robinson Tilapia

….AND Kuroda AND Granderson AND anyone outside of Mick Kelleher….

JohnnyC

Nobody’s perfect. Dombrowski’s bullpens are from hunger.

MannyGeee

And Detroit has not only traded away talented chips for MLB players, they’ve also traded away MLB talent and gotten real good chips in return.

It pains me to say this, but the Tigers are good at baseballing, both on the field and in the office.

entonces

Yes, we should have traded Mattingly for Steve Lyons. We should have traded Jeter for Felix Fermin. And think if we had gotten Wells a year earlier by dumping Mo Rivera! Too bad we didn’t trade Buhner for Ken Phelps (oh, they did, dis they?)

Pee Wee Herman Ruth

Should we have traded Roberto Kelly for Paul O’Neill?

Robinson Tilapia

Kelly was 28 at the time of the trade. O’Neill was 29. Very, VERY different kind of deal.

Pee Wee Herman Ruth

Noted, poor example. Perhaps, C.J. Henry for Abreu is a better example. I liked that trade.

http://twitter.com/#!/Clay_Bellinger Clay Bellinger

A lot of shine had come off of CJ’s star by that point though. Wasn’t all that much risk in that deal.

Robinson Tilapia

Marquez, Nunez, and Betemit for Swisher…..I still can’t believe that actually happened.

I’m still fine with the Granderson deal.

There’s examples of where it absolutely works. The original guy suggested it as default, though, and I definitely do disagree with that.

You got to know when to hold ’em…..know when to fold ’em…..

http://twitter.com/#!/Clay_Bellinger Clay Bellinger

The Swisher deal is still hilarious.

just waiting for it though… BUT HE DIDN’T HIT IN THE PLAYOFFS!!

Pee Wee Herman Ruth

And with a relatively friendly contract for three years!

ChrisS

Swisher and Abreu were more about the payroll relief than anything, which made the talent exchanged more lopsided.

Strive

Huh? Kelly spent parts of 6 seasons in MLB with the Yankees. 4 full seasons. He was like 28 when they moved him for Paul.

I agree with you earlier point about multiple ways to build, but Kelly was not a prospect the Yankees traded. He was really a young veteran coming off his worst full season as a pro.

Pee Wee Herman Ruth

Ya, bad example. Kelly was my first prospect-watch and he never materialized, so I always considered him a prospect in my mind. Sort of like how Peter Pan never grew up.

Robinson Tilapia

Fucking Rick Rhoden.

Jack

I have to agree with Joe 100 percent.

Kevin

63% of the time Joe is tight 75%

Preston

Gosuke Katoh ranked as the 3rd best Pro Debut by a High-Schooler. I really loved following DOTF after the draft because of Jagielo, Wade and Katoh, and that’s without adding Judge and Clarkin into the mix.

toad

I’m curious.

It’s often been said here that right-handed power is hard to find, and I have no particular reason to disagree.

But it seems to me that it used to be that big strong right-handed hitters were fairly plentiful. Almost everyone had a guy or two lik ethat, often at first base.

What happened?

Preston

Well I don’t think it’s a new phenomenom. The top 4 leaders in career ISO are LHB, and 7 of the top ten and that seems to be true all the way down the line. I think it might have to do with the fact that the majority of starting pitchers are right handed, so LHB have the platoon advantage the majority of the time, and for power hitters who usually K more, there is probably a bigger advantage to seeing the ball better out of the hand, and being a good guess hitter than for a contact hitter.

Strive

In 2013 6 of the top 10 in ISO were RH-hitters. 11 of the top 15 were.

I’m still waiting for evidence to support Axisa’s continued insistence that RH power is currently so hard to find.

Bubba

He did say “hard to come by,” which is a bit different than “hard to find.” I can find a lot of Ferrari’s out there, not so many in my garage.

Strive

It’s a bit different, but I don’t think it changes anything.

Anecdotally I don’t really see it. Yankees got a RH hitter who finished 2013 #10 in MLB in ISO for a solid but unspectacular P prospect. Last off-season the Red Sox got Gomes and Napoli pretty cheaply.

Truly top players are harder to find in FA these days, but I don’t know that RH power as an isolated skill is that hard to come by. It could be, but I haven’t seen any evidence.

Bo Knows

Its based on the natural platoon that rhph are so valuable. Its the same principle as why lhsp are more valuable than rhp. It is also why velocity for lhp are seen at a premium over rhp. (I would elaborate but I’m doing this on a phone while riding a bus)

OhioYanks

The opposite is true, and it’s already been pointed out twice. Because there are 2/3 RHP, a LH batter is more valuable. He tends to have a platoon advantage against 2/3 of Ps. A RH hitter is less valuable because there are more RH hitters and RHPs, so he is not scarce and tends to have a platoon split against 1/3 of Ps.

There are actually far more RH hitters in society as a whole. A disproportionate amount of LH hitters probably make MLB because they have the platoon advantage throughout their careers.

MannyGeee

Yeah, Napoli did NOT come cheap.

The original deal was 3/39 before they muscled him to taking a massive paycut after airing his potentially debilitating but more than likely just annoying hip injury to the world.

OhioYanks

3 years, 39 million with no draft pick compensation is not at all expensive for a proven starter with a career 122 wOBA. 122 isn’t great for 1B, but it’s plenty acceptable.

It’s very reasonable both in terms of length and AAV, no pick given up sends it well into cheap territory for me.

Bubba

I’d guess he’s looking for more than just the power. I’ll give you Gomes, but I think Napoli was going for 3/45 before the medicals.

MannyGeee

THIS. There are plenty of power hitting RHB out there, but just not available when you’re looking for one on the market. Hence, the ones you can grab out on the market tend to have Vernon Wells-sized warts.

OhioYanks

Vernon Wells was the only guy available only because the Yankees were looking at the end of ST. When they were looking at a time when an actual supply was available they got Alfonso Soriano without paying a ton. They got Youkilis in the offseason, guys like Jones and Thames in pervious offseasons. Could have made runs at guys like Gomes, Napoli, etc. last off-season if they were actually looking when there was some supply on the market.

At the end of ST, a Wells type or recently cut guy is going to be all that’s available at just about any position.

Strive

The steroid era ended…

In all seriousness, I read a lot of baseball stuff and Axisa is the only person who bemoans the lack of RH power on basically a bi-weekly basis. I don’t remember him once providing an ounce of evidence. I would imagine that power is down across the board and that RH-hitters are worse off because 2/3 of P are RH (platoon splits). Overall, I would guess that RH power is at least as plentiful and less valuable than LH power.

Bo Knows

There are more LHH than there are RHH. Significant power is not a common skill it’s made even more rare because there are fewer starting caliber RHH. Like I said earlier it’s similar to how LHP with velocity in the mid-90’s is seen as a rare an valuable skill.

OhioYanks

No, there are more RHH than LHH.

Think back to your little league or HS teams… how many LHH did you have? One or two? LHH are rarer, but have an advantage because of platoon splits.

Cool Lester Smooth

He’s not bemoaning the lack of RH power, he’s just saying that it’s important for the Yanks to get guys with RH power because any lefty with pop can hit 20 HR in YSIII.

OhioYanks

I don’t think that he said that anywhere.

hey now

I’m hoping, just like everyone else, that this year’s draft finds at least three keepers. That would be an unmitigated success.

The pick that that intrigues me most, though, wasn’t from this year. It was from last year’s draft.

Ty Hensley.

In a sense, he has to be lumped in with this group. He’s their ultimate sleeper prospect.

I just wish his mother would post here more often.

dp

The Yankees should have taken Phil Ervin instead of Jageilo and Ryan McMahon instead of Judge. O’Neill was a wasted pick but the rest of the draft was great!

OhioYanks

He struggled in his debut, but the consensus view of O’Neill was around that part of the draft.

tommy cassella

the yankee farm system produced bums like luis cruz and alberto Castillo. they proved they were not ready to play major league baseball, not even little league baseball.